In Princeton, they like their donuts just fine

APPrinceton University: Borough residents fear it would dominate after a merger of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township.

Kate Warren has a lot to say, even if no one wants to hear it.

“We are never taken seriously by the press,” said the leader of a group of Princeton residents called Preserve Our Historic Borough. “When I do talk to the press, they don’t quote me. I talked to a reporter for an hour and 15 minutes, and he didn’t print a word.”

Why? As a member of the press, I am uniquely suited to give an answer. And I gave it to Warren as we chatted over coffee in her neighbors’ kitchen last week.

The reason no one wants to listen to Warren is that she is on the wrong side of an issue on which all right-thinking people agree — from our Republican governor to the most liberal Democrat in the Legislature. That is the belief that there are too many small towns in New Jersey.

Warren doesn’t think so, at least not as it applies to Princeton Borough, the town in which she lives. The borough is one of those “doughnut hole” municipalities, the doughnut in question being Princeton Township. On Tuesday, voters will be asked whether they wish to consolidate the two Princetons. The referendum must pass in both towns to be successful.

To proponents, it’s a no-brainer. When you merge two towns into one, you can save a lot of money by eliminating duplicative services. Property taxes will fall.

That’s the theory. But the opponents say the theory’s got as many holes in it as the aforementioned doughnuts. The projected savings are illusory, while the new costs are real, Warren argues.

The biggest new cost would be garbage collection. The borough already pays for trash pickup, but people in the township have to make their own arrangements. If the merger goes through, publicly funded trash collection will be extended to the township at a cost that will be partly borne by borough residents, Warren said.

That cost, which could exceed $1 million a year, would kick in right away, along with a lot of transition costs for uniting the two towns, Warren said. As for the theoretical savings from eliminating employees, that would be up to the new governing body to be elected next year. Once in office, however, the new governing body is likely to do what most governing bodies do: Spend right up to that state-imposed 2 percent cap. The two towns are already constrained by that cap. So where’s the savings?

Certainly not in the biggest item on the property tax bill. Municipal costs make up just a fifth of that bill. Education is the big-ticket item, at almost 50 percent. But the Princeton schools are already merged; there’s no savings to be had there.

So in return for what might be, at best, a small savings on their tax bills, borough residents would lose local control.

And that’s a big deal to Jim Firestone.

I first met Firestone in 2002 when he was leading the opposition to a downtown redevelopment scheme that was part of the “smart growth” philosophy then being pushed by the state. A plan backed by the Princeton University crowd involved replacing old buildings with new stores and condominiums, as well as a giant parking garage.

That plan went through, but borough residents and the university are still fighting over other redevelopment plans. The big issue at the moment concerns the Dinky, the train that runs from the Princeton University campus to the NJ Transit rail line a couple miles away. The university wants to relocate the Dinky as part of the redevelopment. Firestone and his neighbors want to keep the train where it is, and they’re not too wild about the redevelopment either.

If the borough were to be swallowed up by the township, Firestone says, the downtown residents’ voices would be lost in these fights against the “800-pound gorilla” on the other side of Nassau Street.

“The people in the borough are sensitive to the 800-pound gorilla, but the people in the township don’t know it’s roaming around the jungle,” he said. “Why get married to someone who doesn’t know who you are, especially when it’s so hard to get a divorce?”

Why indeed? No matter what the deep thinkers think, there’s a reason doughnuts have holes in them. They taste better that way.